Mindful Money’s news round-up: Thursday 21st July 2011

21st July 2011

Story of the day:

From the Guardian, workers in the manufacturing heartland of the West Midlands faced the sharpest increase in unemployment during the recession, while London and the south-east were cushioned from the worst of the job cuts.

And the best of the rest:

The New York Times is concentrating on the US debt problems, lawmakers in Washington are racing to reach a deal to save the country from defaulting on its debt, but on Wall Street, financial players are devising doomsday plans in case the clock runs out.

The Financial Times is reporting, Scottish and Southern Energy has followed in the footsteps of Scottish Power and British Gas by increasing electricity and gas prices for millions of domestic customers, adding to pressure on beleaguered British consumers.

Also in the Financial Times,any move by the European Union to suspend credit ratings for countries being bailed out is "wholly impractical and smacks of censorship", according to policymakers in the UK's upper parliamentary chamber.

From the Telegraph, Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy held crisis talks in Berlin amid warnings that a failure to break the debt crisis deadlock within 24 hours would send shockwaves around the global economy.

Also from the Telegraph, The UK banking sector is gearing up for a collision with Europe's top financial regulator after it set out harsh new rules for the industry that could see banks fined as much as 10pc of their entire annual turnover if they don't comply.

The Independent is reporting on banking reforms as well, Santander's planned part-flotation of its UK business is set to be delayed until next year because of uncertainty created by the Independent Commission on Banking's (ICB) reform proposals and volatile markets.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting, the U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne's goal of reining in the nation's budget deficit looked further out of reach Thursday when figures showed the public sector borrowed more in June than it did a year ago.